This invention relates to pulse oximeters which noninvasively measure the oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in arterial blood and, in particular, to an improved system for performing these calculations and for discriminating valid signals from invalid data such as caused by probe-off conditions or motion artifacts.
It is a problem in the field of pulse oximeters to accurately measure the oxygen saturation of the hemoglobin in arterial blood without having a significant error content due to ambient noise. It is also a problem to determine when the probe used to perform the measurement is producing data with a noise component that is too large to provide an oxygen saturation reading of sufficient accuracy. The oxygen saturation (SpO2) of the hemoglobin in arterial blood is determined by the relative proportions of oxygenated hemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin in the arterial blood. A pulse oximeter calculates the SpO2 by measuring the difference in the absorption spectra of these two forms of hemoglobin. Reduced hemoglobin absorbs more light in the red band than does oxyhemoglobin while oxyhemoglobin absorbs more light in the infrared band than does reduced hemoglobin. The pulse oximeter includes a probe that is placed in contact with the skin, in a vascularized tissue region, either on a flat surface in the case of reflectance probes or across some appendage in the transmission case. The probe contains two light emitting diodes (LEDs), each of which emits light at a specific wavelength, one in the red band and one in the infrared band. The amount of light received after interacting with the tissue adjacent to the LEDs is measured many times a second at both wavelengths.
The tissue contains arterial, capillary and venous blood as well as muscle, connective tissue and bone. Therefore the red and infrared signals received from the probe contain a non-pulsatile component which is influenced by the absorbency of tissue, venous blood, capillary blood, non-pulsatile arterial blood, the intensity of the light source and the sensitivity of the detector. The pulsatile component of the received signals is an indication of the expansion of the arteriolar bed with arterial blood. The amplitude of the pulsatile component is a very small percentage of the total signal amplitude and depends on the blood volume change per pulse and the SpO2. The received red and infrared signals have an exponential relationship to their respective incident intensities. Therefore, the argument of the received red and infrared signals have a linear relationship and these received signals can be filtered and mathematically processed using either derivatives or logarithms. The effects of different tissue thicknesses and skin pigmentation can be removed from the received signals by normalizing the processed signal by a term that is proportional to the non-pulsatile portion of the received signal intensity. Taking the ratio of the mathematically processed and normalized red and infrared signals results in a number which is theoretically a function of only the concentration of oxyhemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin in the arterial blood, provided that the concentration of dyshemoglobins in the arterial blood is sufficiently small.
This data is significantly impacted by the presence of noise, which is manifested in many forms. Any phenomena, whether mechanical or electrical or optical, that causes an artifact in the pulsatile component of the received signals compromises instrument performance. An example is that any transient change in the distance between the light emitting diodes and the detector can result in an error signal at both wavelengths. These pulse sources can course annoying false positive alarms which are of concern in a critical care setting because instruments with frequent alarms are often ignored or the alarms are disabled. Motion artifacts can be caused by patient movement and frequently mimic vascular beats with frequencies well within normal physiological ranges. A second source of noise is the introduction of ambient light into the probe. Any light incident on the detector and not originating from the light emitting diodes is considered noise. Many of these noise sources are not easily filtered out of the resultant signal and represent a significant error component in existing pulse oximeters.
The above-described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved in the field by the improved system for noninvasively calculating the oxygenation of hemoglobin in arterial blood using a pulse oximeter. This improved system takes advantage of the basic statistical property of pulse oximetry signals that the measured blood oxygen saturation appears as a constant over a small set of measurements. Properly processed sets of red and infrared signals have a linear relationship therebetween.
The processing has several steps. First, the received red and infrared signals are collected from the probe detector and pre-processed. This pre-processing includes removal of ambient light and prefiltering to remove noise. The pre-filtering can be a combination of linear filtering to remove unwanted additive noise and non-linear filtering to remove noise spikes. The filtered red and infrared signals consist of both a small magnitude pulsatile component which carries information about the oxygen saturation of the hemoglobin, and a plurality of large magnitude non-pulsatile components. The filtered signals are mathematically processed using either derivatives or logarithms. The results of the mathematical processing are a set of red values which are directly proportional to the red optical Extinction, and a set of infrared values which are directly proportional to the infrared optical Extinction. The red and infrared signals travel through the same pulsatile path when the data is good, which leads to a technique for both identifying good data and extracting the ratio of red optical absorption to the infrared optical absorption for that set of data measurements.
The oxygen saturation is essentially constant for a set of measurements taken over a short interval of time; e.g. less than a second. This implies that, when the data is good and the optical paths are the same for the red and infrared signals, the ratio of the mathematically processed red signal to the mathematically processed infrared signal is also a constant, except for residual noise. Consequently, for good data, a plot of the simplified infrared data points versus the simplified red data points yields points that are tightly scattered around a straight line. A xe2x80x9cbest-fitxe2x80x9d straight line can be computed for these data points using standard mathematical techniques such as linear regression. The slope of that best-fit-line is proportional to the RRatio, which is defined as the ratio of red optical absorption to the infrared optical absorption for that data set. The RRatio carries the desired information about oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in the arterial blood.
The processed signals also contain additional information. If the plotted points are widely scattered about the best-fit-line, the excessive scatter indicates that there is excessive noise or probe artifacts in the received signals. This can be an indication the probe has fallen off the patient and/or there is patient motion. The degree of scatter of the points can be measured using standard mathematical techniques, such as the linear correlation coefficient. The measure of the scatter of the plotted points provides a quality measure of the data sample. Other statistical techniques could also be used to check the linearity of the data; for example, higher-order moments or higher-order fits. Still another test of data quality can be the intercept of the best-fit-line. The intercept is very close to zero for good data. The computed error measures can be compared to a failure threshold, possibly over a series of measurements. If there is too much error, then an alarm can be generated for the user.
The minimum size of the measured data set required for high confidence SpO2 calculations is small and therefore permits faster response of the pulse oximeter to changing values of the SpO2. It is not necessary to wait a pulse period to acquire enough samples, and high confidence values can be computed in less than a second.